Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Ambient running on nitrox

[Jon Wallace <jonw@psubs.org>]

Hi Alan,

Besides fire danger you'd also have to investigate the physiological 
affects that the extended O2 intake would have on your body.  Breathing 
O2 at 40% concentration for 5.5 hours could give you oxygen toxicity 
over such a long period of time.  There's quite a bit of information on 
the web so you should be able to do some detailed investigation to 
determine whether it's safe from a physiological standpoint.  I like the 
concept, but I suspect it is more dangerous than it is worth.

Jon



Alan James wrote:
> Hi psub experts,
> What do you guys think of the idea of running an ambient subs life 
> support on nitrox?
> I'm building a very small fiberglass sub, almost canoe like. 
> Eventually I want to build it 1 atm but
> thought it would be smart to try the design out as an ambient first.
> There might be close to 200 liters of air space in the hull. I have 2 
> x 80cubic ft tanks. If I filled them with
> 40% O2 it would take 2hrs 40min for the air to get down to 21% O2. 
> This is in the worst case scenario of traveling just
> under the surface. At 33ft I'd have 5hrs 20min etc. I could open a 
> valve & flush the system any time & in the normal
> course of a dive this would happen as the air expanded on ascent 
> & filled on descent.
> There is a dive limit of round 90ft with nitrox but longer no 
> decompression times.  However I guess I would need
> to stay inside this depth limit & keep to the air decompression tables 
> to stay safe.
> On the plus side, I won't have to get anything 02 cleaned, & its 
> pretty simple.
> Alan
>  




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